A fundraising effort in the wake of the Haiti earthquake, Help Haiti Now, was broadcast by all the major television stations on Saturday, Jan. 24. Information on how to donate was given during the New Orleans Saints vs. Minnesota Vikings game. Texting “Haiti” to 90999 will send $10 to the Red Cross, billed directly to your account. Some UW students, however, are taking a more personal approach.

Next week, the Registered Student Organizations (RSO) club Hand 2 Hand (H2H), in partnership with the Student Health Consortium (SHC), intends to do just that. They will be setting up a mass donation booth next Thursday in Red Square.

“Hand 2 Hand is a pre-health club not just getting involved at school, but helping the community,” said junior Lauren Tran. With the goal of the club it “seemed appropriate to do something about [the Haiti disaster].”

Tran, a pre-med and political science major, said H2H plans on working with the other pre-health clubs and finding sponsors for the booth. They aim to accept donations while handing out free coffee and donuts. The donations will go directly to the Clinton-Bush Haiti Fund. They chose that organization because 100 percent of the donations goes to Haiti relief.

There are “no fees or administration costs,” Tran said.

In addition to the booth, club members are doing their own fund-raising. Each member will try to raise $50. The club has about 300 active members and around 500 total members.

While many well-meaning people donate clothes, H2H is taking an alternative approach.

“The Red Cross and UN don’t want that at the moment,” she said. “Send money.”

That is what aid organizations are asking for. Just cash donations.

“Clothes take up space. Water is heavy,” Tran said. “Organizations know where they need to spend money.”

H2H is also trying to get t-shirts or buttons made to support their efforts. The slogan will be ‘Help me help you help Haiti.’

First-year MBA student Jeff Hullinger returned from his first trip to Haiti Jan. 3. During winter break, he and about 15 others went down to volunteer at orphanages with the Foundation For Children In Need (FFCIN). The non-profit organization was started in 2002 by his wife Leah Hullinger, along with her mother, Rebecca Maesato, and sister, Ann Maesato.

For two and a half years, they lived in Haiti working with orphanages and running a guest house for U.S. volunteers.

“We had to pull out a little while because of the coup,” Leah Hullinger said.

Last year they started helping out again. Maesato spent several years tracking down birth records so she could adopt eight Haitian orphans.

“Our tie to Haiti is really strong,” Leah Hullinger said.

As soon as they heard about the earthquake, they used their contacts to assess the situation.

“The country was in really bad condition infrastructure-wise,” Jeff Hullinger said. “I can’t image how bad it is now.”

At this stage, they are assembling construction crews.

“Immediately following the earthquake, we started the fund raising effort,” Jeff Hullinger said.

On campus, mostly out of the Foster Business School, he and three others raised $4,500. The focus is on the orphanages FFCIN have a relationship with.

“Red Cross is a large organization, and they do a great job of getting aid,” Jeff Hullinger said. “[Groups] off the beaten path get missed — unregistered, but still in great need of help.”

With local contacts, FFCIN has “been able to get around when not a lot of groups have been able to get around as effectively,” he said.

They were able to send in supplies and get food to different areas at a time when the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) had pallets of aid sitting on the runway. Moving supplies isn’t FFCIN’s only specialty.

“One of our areas of expertise is setting up volunteer groups,” Jeff Hullinger said.

In a couple weeks, about 15 students from a construction management school in Utah will be heading to Haiti, Leah Hullinger said.

“We are putting together plans for rebuilding,” she said. “Reaching out to more orphanages.”

During the 7.0-magnitude quake on Jan. 12, none of the 200 children in the FFCIN Port-au-Price orphanages were harmed. Some of the children were outside playing, but one of the orphanages doesn’t have a playground. The children were inside when the houses next door were flattened.

“It was a miracle they made it,” Leah Hullinger said. “All the kids are okay and unharmed.”

With the numbers of casualties reaching 150,000 since the earthquake, only four or five new Haitian orphans have been dropped off at the FFCIN orphanages.

“As soon as it is known they have temporary shelters, the numbers will increase,” she said.

The first priority for the construction volunteers will be to build a security wall.

“The security walls are pretty important,” Leah Hullinger said. “The second construction project is to build latrines.”

Some children will face relocation during the rebuilding process. The buildings used for the orphanages were rented, so they can’t rebuild or the property owners could take it away.

FFCIN is looking at long-term rebuilding projects.

“We are hoping to have volunteers on the ground for eight months continuously,” Leah Hullinger said. “None of the donations are going toward volunteer costs. Our volunteers pay their own way.”

Eeach volunteer pays about $1,000, not including airfare. This covers meals, lodging and in-country transportation.

Current airfare rates are as low as $412 per person.

“I know it is tough for students as far as time goes,” Jeff Hullinger said. As a full-time MBA student with a family, his time is short. There is potentially going to be a construction project for spring break. Not everyone needs to be a licensed contractor; zero experience is required.

“Sweat is something we can use at this stage,” Jeff Hullinger said. “Someone as useless as me could get a lot done.”

Reach contributing writer Peter Sessum at lifestyles@dailyuw.com.